Spoken Word

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-eVF_G_p-Y

Sunday Mornings

My eyelids slowly open, they flicker before my vision is clear.

I hear the familiar clang of a pan, a sound I'll miss while at college

I wrap myself in a blanket and take my time walking down the stairs, one by one.
Cooper spots me and leaps from his bed.

His warm tongue greets me, and I can't help but smile.

I try to remember everything about these Sunday mornings.

Cooper and I lay on the floor in a cozy pile of warmth. 

Staying here for the rest of the day would be perfect.

I smell the bacon as it sizzles and the toast as it turns golden brown.

I feel at peace when my actions slow down and I can appreciate my life.

I sink into family on these Sundays and for this I am grateful.

The Oarfish

The New York Times article reads "California: A Rare Fish Surfaces".
Once I had flipped the previous page,
My eyes immediately focused on the picture of the sea creature.
Its bony body spans across the twelve marine biologists who hold it up.
I stare at the picture in amazement and the only word my mouth can find is "wow".
"Staff members at the Catalina Island Marine Institute are calling the carcass of an 18-foot oarfish,
The discovery of a lifetime".
Why haven't  I heard of it?
An oarfish?
I open up a new tab on my computer and browse the numerous pictures of the eel like creature.
It is fascinating to learn about these rare animals that dive 3,000 feet below the surface.
Nature is amazing and exciting, with so much more to learn.

Chris Martins Poetry Blog

After reading many of Mr. Martins works, a main theme that I recognized throughout the poems was people and describing the environment around him. Martin portrays an urban scene in the poem  Surviving Desire, with graffiti, the everyday traffic landscape and the smog-blue-gray. Martin uses many words that I do not understand, so unfortunately this slows the rhythm of the poem. Once I look up these words, the poem obviously makes more sense and I am able to understand the poem. The format Martin uses with the three line sections also slows down the reading of the poem. These frustrations set aside, there are a few other lines that I found interesting. In The Science Fiction of Color the line, "Their window in the twenty-second commercial of childhood, our attention wavering as the world does". I'm still trying to unpack this line, but I like the way it flows. This line does reflect my original thoughts on the elements present in his poems, because he might be referencing the unstable world we have today.

Highland Park

The deer emerge from the woods only for

A second before a car passes, scaring them back.

A raccoon tries to squeeze into the sewer, 

his eyes highlighted by a dark mask.

The silver maple towers over the house,

Providing a canopy, that will soon be lost in fall. 

Squirrel's hidden homes become public, as animals 

Begin to settle in for a winter that could spring at any time.

On the edge of St. Paul, Highland is my home.

Time is Peace

The chair wrapped around me and gave me time,
The noise of the lounge began to fade away,
I had reached a place of peace and now I'm
Not afraid to take the next step and say.

Every day is new with things to learn,
From class to class we move and shape our minds,
I sit in my house and attempt to burn,
The new information we seek to find.

I love my life because it is all mine,
the environment I'm in lets me shine

Sutphen Response

Of all Joyce Sutphen's poems, I enjoyed "How to Listen" the most. I feel it applies to my life at school and how I interpret the world around me. Her line, "Don't attempt to copy anything down. Don't bring a camera or a recorder”. A literal example of this is at music concerts when everyone in the front row is filming the concert that is taking place in front of them. I'd think that people would enjoy the concert more if they actually watched and enjoyed the show they paid for. This applies to life and enjoying what’s in front of you. The next line I enjoyed was, “make no comparisons”. This is saying that although we learn from our past experiences we need to go into new situations with an open mind.